Chaminade Legacy, Volume 6

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770 pages

Volume six of The Chaminade Legacy continues the development in the foundational period of Marianist life; it covers the period from 1821 to 1830, which saw development of ideas on religious formation of both men and women religious. In addition to notes from four retreats (1821 to 1824) and the retreats of 1827 at Saint Remy and of 1829 at Saint Laurent, documents include the Manual of Direction for Religious Life, several writings on the Method of Mental Prayer and the Common Method, and the formal Ceremonial of the Daughters of Mary and conferences for them at Agen. Volume seven will include their Constitutions.

Other sections cover developments in the legal recognition of the Society of Mary, along with the Statutes and Constitutions of the Society of Mary in 1829, as well as the Particular Regulations.

Father Chaminade negotiated the purchase of Father Conne’s extensive library and oversaw the expansion of works of the Society of Mary into Alsace and the northeast of France, at Saint-Hippolyte and Saint Remy; he traveled to these foundations more than once and helped to develop the methods of teaching for use in the Society of Mary.

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It is with the Apostles’ Creed as with holy Scripture—a single word of these divine works can often provide an inexhaustible source of instruction.

In the words of the Creed, I believe in God, there are three different meanings which the holy Fathers have themselves pointed out when explaining it, and in particular Saint Augustine. When I say, “I believe in God,” I mean to say [25] that (1) I believe firmly that there is a God; (2) I believe firmly whatever it has pleased God to teach me; (3) I hope in God, and God is the object of my trust and of my love. “To believe in {a} God,” Saint Augustine says, “I believe in {the word of} God, I believe in {toward} God. To believe in God means to believe that there is a sovereign and independent master who governs the universe; to believe in the word of God means to believe that whatever God has said is true; to believe toward God means to love God.” All these dispositions are expressed and enclosed in this first word of the Creed. By this first word we acknowledge God under three different qualities: (1) as sovereign Being, (2) as sovereign Truth, and (3) as sovereign Good.

First Part

Explanation of these three different senses of these very divine words, Credo in Deum, “I believe in God,” the first truth we profess to believe when reciting the Creed and the foundation of all the other truths of religion and of salvation. A truth which both religion and nature teach us equally. The truth most known of all the truths; but a truth, if I dare [26] to say it, and I say it in a very true sense—the most unknown truth.

1. A most known truth. What is better known, in fact, than that there is a God? Faithful and infidels, Greeks and Barbarians, there is no nation so vicious that does not recognize that there is a God or has not received from nature itself this impression of the divinity. Whoever would desire to deny a supreme Being—let them look at the stars, nature, the animals—all preach to them that there is a supreme Being who has made all this, and which human hands cannot make. (Speaking of someone who would deny the existence of a supreme being), Job says he should “ask the most stupid animals and they will instruct him; let him ask the birds of the sky, and they will show him their creator; let him ask the earth, and the earth will respond” (Job 12:7).

2. At the same time, a most unknown truth. Not only are there many infidels who do not know the true God, but there are also a great number of negligent Christians who recite the Creed without thinking at all of what is contained in it. Is it knowing God to pray to him every day without thinking about what we are saying? No, of course not; this is [27] not praying to God. . . . If in speaking of God we would recall even a small part of what God is, what a source of light we would find in this simple expression, “I believe in God”! What consolation! What strength! What a source of joy, and of fully holy joy! These are the sentiments with which we should be penetrated in pronouncing this first word of the Creed, “I believe in God.” Let us join to it the homage we owe to God as sovereign truth.

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